What the doctor should have meant: dishery.diaryland.com

My blood is loco, cholo � remember about a year and a half ago when I had to get it typed and found out that I�d gone from B positive to B negative? According to the nice people at the Puget Sound Blood Center, who ought to know, I am now O negative, and I have to say I dig mightily the idea that to such a great extent what I was then I am not now: here�s to what�s out of my system. Also, if I may brag, the technician told me last night that I was the fastest bleeder all day, five and a half minutes. Then you have to spend 20 in their Ten Forward drinking juice and eating cookies and pastry, fine with me � I called Catharine on my cell phone and we plotted my May trip. Then I left, and although I�d been psyching myself up all day since I�d posted yesterday�s entry to forgo the movie in favor of the basketball, I realized as I was leaving work that I�d forgotten my keys again and since it was too late for the movie I did not have the opportunity to display self-unsabotage; I think I would have done it but I can�t say for sure, I don�t want to take the credit. (And how about the fact that over the past few months I�ve been forgetting my keys on the order of every ten days or so, when previously I had not? Ha ha, it entertains me to be so transparent.) I walked to Capitol Hill and bought some new musics for the road trip to Astoria tonight and then Steve came and picked me up. As I write, I�ll be on the road in less than two hours. Steve�s taking the drink token I brought him from last time, when Vanessa and I were there, when I barely knew him. I like that part too � isn�t that material for a Lucinda Williams song right there? ("Fearless lipstick?" No, too redolent of "Careless Whispers." Let me think about it, I�ll get back to you.) Vanessa told me to say hi to Bubba for her, and I hope I get the chance.

Yes, I am still as depressed and mowed down as I was when I wrote yesterday. But I am also not. Getting to the bottom of it would require the equivalent of an autopsy, though, and I have stuff to do in the meantime, so I�m trying just to force my way forward.

It is a beautiful day. You could do a lot worse than drive to Astoria with your Mr. Man or Ms. Lady on an afternoon like this, sunroof open and new music in the cd player, and then when you get there to go drink beer and eat fried oysters and take a walk on the beach.

If you see me, don�t let me start telling you about how my contract job is going, because all I�m going to do is make my eyes bug out and start whining about how much work it is, how many hours per week over the contracted 40 I�m going to have to work to get it done, how it�s clearer by the day that the reason they brought a contractor in is that contractors make less guilt-inducing scapegoats. Following a long workshop that was conducted by the big gun consultant today, this is what I wrote to Steve: This project is impossible, that's all there is to it. But it looks like I am going to do it anyway. So beyond that, I figure, the details are not all that important. Resolve is all. And frankly since I�ve been using so much of my free time not on intellectual or self-propping-up pursuits like the gym thing but on practicing my fretting, knocking myself out with work will probably be stressful yet long-term therapeutic. I�ll do my work and I�ll pack and move and paint, and that will be it for a while; I won�t feel guilty about not reading enough, for example, because I won�t have time. Resolve is all. My manager is a good guy � his whitepapers are brawny and likable, filled with phrases like "beefier hardware" and "pretty much a tactical response." When my third pen in two days died on me yesterday, the woman who sits behind me made a joke about load balancing, and maybe this is only because I was feeling manic, but I thought it was hilarious.

Should I like Kings Of Leon? I don�t.

I read an interview with Erika Krouse yesterday. I got good take-away.

This is all for now. I have some work yet to do before I scramble.